Not happy with Tahmazo T15 and Balancer

[flameangel]

I jus got a Tahmazo T15 and TB6 Balancer. I'm a bit disappointed in the sense that charging and balancing takes such a long time.

Yesterday, it took close to 2 hours just to charge and balance a pair of 2s 1300mah battery!! On the charger, my setting was set to 1000mah but on the LCD screen during it shows charging rate of 0.15 to 0.18mah etc. Charging/Balancing a TP 2200mah also took around 2 hours.

I paid so much for this charger thinking it might help to shorten my waiting time.. :

Can any bros here share with me how to improve my charging time? Some people told me to just balance the battery first after a flight then charge the battery without a balancer. Any comments and how to charge directly from TL15 to the battery bypassing the balancer???

[edmond22]

Hey angel,

what power adapter are you using to power the charger? Could it be due to insufficient power from the adapter?

[flameangel]

My Tahmazo T15 charger comes with a AC/DC. Supply up to 5A.

[baby_zyklon]

If you t15 is same as my type of t15, just plug in batt to charger and you will bypass the balancer. i.e., JUST CHARGE LIKE YOU DIDN'T BUY THE BALANCER Afaik, there is only 1 t15 model, just with ac or without ac.

Yes, the t15 takes a hell lot longer than some cheaper charger like prolux, but I guess that means it is charging your battery fuller? i.e. peaking it to a higher peak?

While I am outdated of the current breed of chargers and lipo, I think the same old lipo theory should still apply. From what I understand, when charging a lipo, the charger will give the max charging rate that you set for the batt until your batt voltage reaches 4.2v per cell. Then the charger reduces the current slowly to maintain the 4.2v per cell. As you the charging current goes down, you will see the amount of mah put in is a lot lesser for the same amount of time. Cutoff current will varies with different charger and better chargers seem to have lower cutoff current and thus will charge the battery more full. However, because the end charge rate is so low, you might spend like an additional 30mins just to put in 50mah more?

[VinCopter]

The charger can be power with both AC and DC.

For Lipo charging, the charging current should not be more than 1C. Let say your 1300mAh should be charge at not more than 1.3A. The charging time usually around an hour and depends on how much capacity it puts in. Lipo charging uses the constant current than constant voltage method.
So what you will see is like this;
- press start button, the charging current increase vary fast till it reaches current you’ve sat
- it will continue to charge at that current and the charge voltage will slowly increase
- when the voltage reach the top say 8.4V for 2S and 12.6V for 3S and so on, the charging current will starts to decrease
- the above will continues until the pack is full, than the charger will stop

There, hope that explain what you’ve observed. All this time the balancer is connected to the pack.

The balancer is to ensure that all the cells in the pack stay at the same voltage while charging. There are two ways to connect, charge through the balancer (look likes you use this) and bypass where you charger direct to the pack with the balancer connected to the balancing tab on the pack. Both methods will give you similar results and charging time.

Just set the right current and let the charger carry on.

Must always charge you lipo packs with the balancer. IMO just to save some time now and to shorten the pack’s life span.

[edmond22]

lol, my prolux also takes a lot longer than my Xpower to charge.

Angel, you can try Zyklon's method and see how it goes. I used to balance charge with my flightpower and hyperion balancer for my batteries. But I think there are more harm that can arise from it after I encountered balancing tab contact issue from repeated usage. I now only charge my batts direct and measure them every 5 flights to see if they are out of wack. If they are I will carefully balance them with my balancer and monitor them to make sure the balance tabs are contacting properly.

1 problem I faced with balancers is that after some usage, there are some contact issues and the balance detects inbalance incorrectly and tried to balance the batts bringing them even more out of wacks. I experienced 0.75 volt difference because of this lol.

So far with the 5 charge check, I have yet to see a real need for balancing as all my 8 FP 3s2150/3s2170, 2 kokam 3s2000 and 4 polyRC 2s4350 have yet to show more than 0.02 differences. Discharge range from 15C to 25C, highest peak 98amps kekeke and still ok.


Am keeping a record and with some time, I will be able to put some results here to share with all. So far I am registering 4.15, 4.16, 4.17 results.

[flameangel]

Dear Bros, thanks for all your kind feedback.

Question 1

Can anyone here tell me why people balance their batteries after a flight? I have seen people doing that with Flight power balancer. Is there really a need to do that?

Well, some told me after balancing the batt, charging will be faster after that. Is it true? Cos during charging; the balancing will take place all over again.

[tucfaz]

This thread just reminded me of the same issue I face on a supposedly good equipment..

[edmond22]

Dear Bros, thanks for all your kind feedback.

Question 1

Can anyone here tell me why people balance their batteries after a flight? I have seen people doing that with Flight power balancer. Is there really a need to do that?

Well, some told me after balancing the batt, charging will be faster after that. Is it true? Cos during charging; the balancing will take place all over again.

I used to do that after a flight. The reason I did it then was to do the balancing on the field so that when they are ready for charging, there is no balancing to do theoritically. I couldn't tell if it were faster or not. The Xpower charger registers about the same 60-70 mins charging time.

[flameangel]

edmond22,

U balanced it at the field, do u balance the batteries again after they are charged?

[edmond22]

I do it only if I have to, I no longer use the balancer to see if they are balanced kekeke. I used my multimeter to poke and see. If they are our of wack, then I balance them. But so far so good, no balancing needed yet before and after.

[flameangel]

Now my Charger has difficulties detecting the battery connected to the TB6 balancer. It keep saying Battery not found despite pressing the mode button on the balancer. Tried for almost 1 hour and it still shows "No battery Found"

Any idea? Is my Charger faulty?

[clai]

Have u check the fuse on the balancer?

The status lamp on the balancer should be flashing at a rate of 1 flash per second.

[flameangel]

Well, the light is flashing at 1 per second when connected to the charger. It even shows the individual cell voltage.

Well, this morning; I tested the balancer on my friend's T15 and his charger could not detect the battery connected. So I came to conclusion that the problem lies with the balancer.

Could it be Fuse problem?

[edmond22]

You should be able to pull the fuse out and inspect it under some lights. look out for the plastic thingy and yank it out.